108 Produce DVDs with CD & DVD Creator Before You Begin 92 About Putting Movies on DVD 106 About Advanced Movie Production Software If you want the very best tool for a specific job, you should use a tool designed for that job and nothing else. Roxio's CD & DVD Creator is perhaps one of the best applications for creating DVDs and CDs. The blend of simplicity and power can't be beat. Although CD & DVD Creator has no video-editing features, most video editors will want to have CD & DVD Creator on hand because of its wide assortment of DVD- related creation tools. NOTE | Roxio's CD & DVD Creator cannot use Windows Media Player files as source files for DVDs and video CDs. Therefore, if you want to transfer Movie Maker movies to DVD or video CD using CD & DVD Creator, you must save your Movie Maker file in the digital video AVI format. | CD & DVD Creator contains a huge assortment of tools you can use for many areas of multimedia work. Even if you work exclusively in Movie Maker or a video-editing system as advanced as Adobe Premiere Pro ( see 110 About Editing Professionally with Adobe Premiere Pro ), Roxio's CD & DVD Creator can still help you with tools such as these: -
A media player that plays audio CDs and DVDs -
A ripper that rips music from your audio CDs to your computer's hard disk -
Digital photo tools that enable you to design and create printed picture albums, Web albums, and slideshows from your digital photos -
A DVD burner with transitions and animated menus -
Back-up tools back up your hard disks and other media onto CDs or DVDs -
A label maker enables you to design and create eye-catching labels for your CDs and DVDs - Start CD & DVD Creator
You can start CD & DVD Creator from your Start menu or by clicking the Roxio Home icon at the right of your Windows taskbar. When you start the program, you're greeted with a window showing you a list of categories from which you can choose. TIP | If you also use Roxio's VideoWave ( see 107 Edit Movies with VideoWave ), the CD & DVD Creator startup menu lists VideoWave as an option, so you can access both programs from the same interface. | - Select Disc Copier
CD & DVD Creator is considered by many to be the fastest and most accurate copier software available. When you click to select the Disc Copier option, CD & DVD Creator displays a copyright notice informing you that you should only copy that for which you own the copyright and then begins the copy procedure. NOTE | As you see, CD & DVD Creator provides numerous tools for you, the videographer, but provides no video editing tools. | - Insert Source and Destination Discs
Insert the disc (CD or DVD) that you want to make a copy of in the source drive and put a blank disc in your writable drive. If you have only one drive, CD & DVD Creator will select it for both. - Click Begin Disc Copy
Click the Begin Disc Copy button and the duplication starts. After the copy process, you can copy the source onto another disc or return to the main CD & DVD Creator menu. - Click Exit
Click the Exit button to close the disc copying process and return to the primary CD & DVD Creator menu. - Click for Audio Tools
At CD & DVD Creator's main menu, you can select the Audiocentral option to mix and edit audio content that you'll later add to your movies. TIP | You can mix and edit audio with the Audiocentral tool, and use that audio in any other video production program, including Movie Maker ( see 7 About Making Audio a Priority ). | - Click to Edit Photos
At CD & DVD Creator's main menu, you can select the Photosuite option to edit photos that you might want to use as title and credit backgrounds, or in video scrapbooks you create on CDs and DVDs. Photosuite offers tools such as red-eye removal and sharpness adjustments, so you can correct defects in your pictures before sending them to your production. - Click DVD Builder
Start Roxio's DVD Builder application by clicking DVD Builder . - Click Import
Select from the Import menu to capture or (more likely) import a movie file into DVD Builder. NOTE | Because you can only import video into DVD Builder and it provides no video-editing tools, you'll import the final video you've created in another program, such as Adobe Premiere Pro. | - Click Add Files
Select the file (or files) you want to put on this DVD and click the Add Files button to send them to the DVD project. - Add an Introduction
When the user first puts a DVD into her player, the DVD plays any short introductory video you add to the Intro section. (Without an introduction, the DVD will go straight to your menu, or to the first movie if you do not set up a menu.) - Add to Menu
Notice the locations for Movie A and Movie B. If you add video to Movie B, a Movie C option will become available. The video content you add will not always be full movies ”often you only add one movie. The other video content you add comprises the extra content you might want to put on your DVD, such as outtakes and bloopers. TIP | Don't add an intro or secondary videos if you want your DVD to begin playing your video as soon as your audience inserts it into a DVD player. | - Click to Change Menu Theme
Click the Change Menu Theme button at the bottom of your screen to change the menu background picture and title format. Various selectable holiday and event menu themes appear. You can change a theme as often as you want before burning the DVD until you find the one that best suits your video. - Click Play to Preview
As you add elements to your DVD, you can preview the DVD (including menus you add) by clicking the Play button. - Click Burn to Create DVD
After you build your DVD content the way you want it, insert a blank disc in your DVD-writable drive and click the Burn button in the lower right-hand corner of the screen. DVD Builder then creates your DVD. - Click Exit
Click the Exit button to return to the main menu. - Click Exit
Click the Exit button to exit CD & DVD Creator's menu. |